Estelle was the acknowledged queen of the 26 girls; she even rated mention as such in the gossip columns, where the story was often told of her having taken ten grand from one high-roller in two hours.
She wasn’t playing tonight; these days, that was for special occasions only. She was milling, chatting, glad-handing-she was a Chicago celebrity herself, in a minor way; a bush league Texas Guinan. She’d come far from her waitress days at Rickett’s.
Not that Rickett’s was a shabby place for a girl just twenty, at the time, to work. It was the Lindy’s of Chicago, your typical white-tiled lunchroom but open twenty-four hours, a Tower Town mainstay famous for attracting bohemian types and show people and your occasional North Side gangster. Rickett’s was also known for its good, reasonably priced steaks, which was what brought me there, in my early plainclothes days. What kept me coming back, though, was the pretty blonde waitress.
Nick Dean must’ve met her there as well, but that was after I’d stopped seeing her. We only lasted a couple of months, Estelle and me. But they were some months.
I’d run into her occasionally since, but we’d never more than had coffee, and not that, in five or six years.
So now I was edging through the packed Colony Club-this was Saturday night after all-with its art-deco decor, all chromium and glass and shiny black and shiny white, its crowd of conventioneers and upper-income types whose recreation in better weather was sailing skiffs and larger craft in Lake Michigan, the muffled sounds of ersatz Benny Goodman from the dine-and-dance area adjacent mingling with the noise of dice-and-drink, wondering if she’d recognize me.
Then I was facing her.
She gave me her standard, charming smile, one to a customer, and then it sort of melted into another kind of smile, a smile that settled in a dimple in one cheek.
“Nate,” she said. “Nate Heller.”
“I’d forgotten how goddamn green your eyes are.”
“You know what you always said.” Her eyes tried to twinkle, but the effect was melancholy.
“Yeah. That all they lacked was the dollar signs.”
“Maybe you just didn’t look close enough.”
“You mean if I had I’d’ve seen ’em?”
She tossed her blond curls. “Or not.”
Somebody jostled me-we were holding up traffic-and she took me by the arm and led me through the smoky, noisy bar to a wide open stairway, which was fitting for this wide open place. It separated the bar from the restaurant and wound gently up to two shiny ebony doorways overseen by a bouncer in a white coat and black dress pants and a shine he could look down in to check how mean he looked. She and the bouncer nodded at each other, and he pushed the doors open for us and I followed her on through.
We threaded our way through the crowded casino, a big open room with heavily draped walls and indirect lighting and action at every table, noise and smoke and the promise of easy money and easy women. Some of the men here had brought a date or possibly even a wife; but many of these girls in skintight gowns were from the same table as the 26 girls downstairs.
At the bar in back, Estelle approached a fleshy-faced man with wire glasses who stood near, but not quite at, the bar; he wore a white jacket and dress pants and was keeping an eye on the casino before him, arms folded, patrons stopping to chat and him smiling and nodding, occasionally dispatching directions to other, lesser white-jacketed employees.
We waited while he did that very thing, and then Estelle introduced us.
“Sonny, this is Nate Heller.”
He smiled automatically, the professional host’s twitch, but the eyes behind the glasses were trying to place me; as we were shaking hands, his grip moist and unconvincing, they did: “The detective.”
“That’s right. And you’re Sonny Goldstone. I remember you from the 101 Club.” Which had been a Rush Street speakeasy not so long ago, where-like here-he’d been floor manager. Now as then, Goldstone was one of Nicky Dean’s partners-his front man, the ostensible owner of the Colony Club.
“I understand you’ve done some favors for the boys from time to time,” he said in his hoarse, toneless voice.
“That’s right.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you went around denying, especially not to anybody connected.
“Pity about Eddie O’Hare,” he said, impassively.
“Pity,” I said, not reading him at all.
Estelle said, “Sonny, Nate’s an old friend. I haven’t seen him in years, seems like. I’m going to go upstairs with him for a while.”
“The front two suites are in use.”
“All right.”
“Will you be long, Estelle? It’s Saturday night, you know.”
“We’re just going to chat for half an hour or so.”
“The people come here to see you, you know.”
She patted his cheek like he was a naughty child for whom she held a certain reluctant affection. “The people come here to throw away money and their cares. I’m just window dressing. I’m sure you can keep the cash register ringing for a while without me.”
“Have fun,” he said, flatly; it might just as easily been “so long” or “fuck you.”
We threaded back through the casino into the entry area, where we rounded a corner and found a door that said “No Admittance,” which proved its point by being locked. Estelle unlocked it, and we were in a little hallway, off of which were a few doors and a self-service elevator. We took the elevator.
The third floor seemed to be offices and conference rooms and, as promised, a few suites.
Ours wasn’t a lavish suite, just the like of a room in a typical Loop hotel, maybe a touch bigger, in shades of blue, small wet bar, bed and bath. Bed is what she was sitting on, kicking off her shoes, stretching out her million-dollar legs to relax, and show off.
“You want a drink, Nate?”
“When I knew you, you didn’t drink.”
“I still don’t,” she said, tossing her pageboy again. “I don’t smoke either. But when I knew you, you sure did. Drink, I mean. Rum, as I remember. Has that changed?”
“No. I still don’t smoke, though.”
“You sound like a regular all-American boy.”
“You’re an all-American girl, all right. Horatio Alger in a skirt.”
She frowned, just a little. “Why are you angry?”
“Am I?”
She patted the bed next to her. “Sit down.”
I sighed, and did.
“You’re angry because I’m so successful.”
“No! I think your success is swell. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Exactly what I wanted. And you’ve got what you wanted, all those years, don’t you? Your own business. Your own detective agency.”
I shrugged. “We are expanding,” I said, not being able to help myself from bragging it up a little. I told her how I’d added two operatives and doubled my office space and even had a secretary, no more hunt-and-peck on the typewriter.
She smiled, both dimples. “I bet she’s cute as a button, with a great big crush on her boss. Taken advantage of her yet, Nate?”
“Your psychic powers are failing you on that one, Estelle. I’m sorry I was a grouch, before.”
She touched my shoulder. “I understand. It’s just the same old argument, isn’t it?”